does anyone know what is the best mileage to change oil? The service manual says 5000 miles, the dealer says 2000 miles. what do you guys reccomend?

 

it also depends on when and how your ride, as well as how often...

i run synthetics in all of my machines (except for one tractor that i just change the oil on often). main advantage of syn is that you dont have to worry so much on garage queens (like my cages). i run syn in the sporty, but it gets good miles on it.

also if you ride on the big road mainly you can go longer (like the 5k range)- if its lotsa stop and go and you sharing it with other vehicles, i would go less than the 5k even with synthetic. the only way i would go 2k miles on a syn is if it sat for several years! (i do have a cage that i change every coupla years with syn that gets low mileage- prob dont have to though).

syn wont degrade as badly as dino oil. if dino sits for a long time its not a good thing. syn sitting long time isnt nearly as bad (wont degrade anyway- you still have toxins and acids).

 

I go 2500 miles with Rev Techs dino.

The oil never has the chance to breakdown.

I would never use HDs Syth again.

 

Old habits are hard to break, and for years I've been in the habit of changing the oil and filter at somewhere around the 2,500 - 2,800 mile mark.

That's more frequent than it needs to be changed, but I don't care....

After all, it only takes a few minutes of my time and only costs around $20 so it's no big expense.....

 

Normal riding 5k Is fine,,,

Me ,,syn 3 n filter every 3,500 ish miles,,why ?
It get's awful hot an Humid down here In Florida and I
Like to "Play" all over my Tach.
I'm not hard on my engine but I don't baby It I Use It XD

Roach Oil Is old tech,,Go to Synthetic,,,
Stick with the standard HD Oil Filter, not some 5 micron thing that
can reduce Oil flow as the filter gets dirty

 

Every 2500-3000 or at least once a year.

 

I usually go 3,000 - 3,500 miles using a good synthetic like Mobil-1.
I'll stretch it to ~4,500 on a trip if the bulk of the mileage is on the highway.

 

I do 5,000 and use RevTech synthetic 20/50 and now the 90T Harley filter. cHarlie steered me right on that. Zanotti's had them mail order.

 

Unless you are drag racing, and I mean really drag racing not just hot rodding once in awhile, go by the manual, anything more often is just a wast of money and oil.. If you use synthetics you can go longer, but to be sure how much longer for any given engine you would need to send oil samples off to be tested.

I use synthetic on all my vehicles. On my cars I go 10K never had an issue. Every car I have the manual says either 5K or 6K. My son still drives my wife's 98 Civic and it has 170K miles on it.

On my motorcycles I go about 1.5 times what the manual says, so about 7K.

Or once a year, no matter what the mileage.

 

Thanks to everyone for your advice. I've owned lots of machines but this is the first harley and i know some times things have quirks. I also want to do it right because of the warranty.